Letter: Stuck with more than the name!

[Oscar]

Stuck with more than the name!

Sent for publishing on November 30, 2009

Dear Editor:

In the article entitled “Jobs are safe: Big Sky” (News Review Extra, November 21, 2009), we read that Big Sky Farms is blaming the “unfortunate nickname given to the H1N1 pandemic – swine flu” for its predictable and disastrous economical woes.

However, a May 1999 Raleigh (N.C.) News & Observer story, one of many, titled "Disease detectives untangle mystery of mutant flu virus" (available in the paper's online archives) reported that the 1998 bug -- a pig virus "wrapped in a shell of human proteins" -- was isolated by a state government veterinary lab. Similar mutations are suspected in earlier flu outbreaks, including the 1918 Spanish flu that killed more than 20 million people worldwide.

According to that story, the virus was discovered in August 1998 at a 2,400-sow breeding farm owned by Newton Grove, N.C.-based Hog Slat Inc., a leading builder of factory-style hog farms. The company is also one of Sampson County's largest employers -- as is Smithfield Foods, the Virginia-based corporation that owns numerous hog farms near the Mexican community where the earliest case of the current swine flu was identified.
(Institute for Southern Studies at:
http://www.southernstudies.org/2009/05/
swine-flu-genes-traced-to-north-carolina-hog-farm.html)

It is believed that the Mexican community in question is the village of La Gloria, located near a Smithfield-owned intensive hog operation (with the usual open-air liquid manure pits immediately adjacent to the hog barns near village residences), where “at least one child is confirmed to have had the pandemic swine flu.”
(Beyond Factory Farming Fact Sheet at: http://www.beyondfactoryfarming.org/files/swineflu.pdf)

But, it looks like we’re stuck with more than the name!

From the 22-page Big Sky List of Creditors, it appears that there’ll be no money for the dozens of farmers who hauled feed to the barns. And, while Saskatchewan taxpayers are left holding the $96 million bag on this fiasco, it’s interesting to note that former owner/manager of Big Sky, Florien Possberg, will be getting his money back!

Elaine Hughes
Archerwill, SK